The Time Effect

Time is known to heal wounds. It is said to be the biggest and greatest teacher. Time takes us through various stages of life, each teaching a lesson of its own. Time evolves us; it transforms our surroundings and changes the world every second. Time takes its toll on everything. A seed grows into a tall and dense tree, and with time, it dies. People are born, they achieve their primes and then they start deteriorating and finally, they perish. Time changes everything. There are many ruins around the world that once used to be marvelous castles and forts.

The human face, right from its creation to its disappearance, takes many different lessons of life to make for its features. If we take a look at a face of a person years apart, it reveals how life and time have changed it.

One such project is done by Ana Oliveira, from London United Kingdom. Titled Identities II, the project constitutes of portraits of different people before and after a certain period of time. The project, where highly creative in nature, has a lesson embedded deep within. Time never allows anyone or anything to remain the same. The first set of portraits is of a lady, who in her younger years was a picture perfect example of beauty and youth. However, the same lady, in the latter half of the portrait set, shows how time has affected her. The formerly fresh and beautiful face is now full of wrinkles, each telling a story of her journey through life.

There are many other portraits in the project, some even having a gap of over 60 years between them. This project reveals the bitter realities of life and tells us that even though man has mastered many a things in the universe, he cannot and never will master time. All that live will decease ultimately. Every face has a story to tell. It is up to the beholder to look intently and try to understand what a face says. Sometimes, words are not needed to narrate a story; mere observation can reveal the secrets lying within a being.

Take a look at Oliveira’s project and think deep. Looks change, people change, time ensures that. Therefore, it is more important to be remembered as who you were rather than how you looked like.